Baby's Development at the age of Five months

Till fifth month, all the progress shown by your baby was rather subtle in terms of being obvious and enjoyable to even those who hardly see her. Your fondness of her made you notice each change very carefully and cherish the same by all means.

Now she is all set to step into altogether another era of infancy, wherein the subtle pace will make way for fast and furious changes in your baby, both in terms of physical and cognitive capabilities. Now your little one may comfortably roll over her back, as well as sit momentarily without support. If lying on her tummy, she will be able to raise her head and shoulders using her arms and legs. At this time, you may decide to let her sit on her own by providing her support of cushions from all sides. You may also like to make her lie down on her stomach on the bed and leave toys before her. Thus, you will encourage her to lift her head and chest and look upward to play with the toys. This ensures that her neck muscles become stronger and she gains better control over her head movements. This also helps her to control her head while sitting up and eventually quicken her progress to sit on her own.

By now, you can distinctly observe the ease with which she brings any object to her mouth for oral exploration. This development becomes all the more exciting if you recollect the first two months of her age, when she could barely bring her hands together and any oral exploration of her own hand used to be strictly accidental. The extent of hand eye coordination achieved by her is all the more evident and enthralling when you watch her hold her own feeding bottle.

Her language abilities are developing gradually too, as she is supplementing her language collection sound by sound – practicing each newfound sound one by one until mastered – and moving onto newer sounds to repeat them over and over again to mastery. Her favorite sounds for this age may be raspberry or making bubbles. While she makes a particular sound persistently, she also interacts with her surroundings, you and others. She may enjoy small games played by you with her and learns the concept of cause and effect or that every small action has results. You may notice her dropping objects and picking them up again and again, only to learn her lessons accurately and by heart.

Your baby is now getting better at spotting small objects and tracking any moving thing. Now she is able to recognize objects after seeing only a part of it. Playing hide and seek games is usual fun activity for five month old. Earlier your little girl was able to distinguish between bright colors only and now she is learning to make out difference between subtle pastels too.

Now she can swiftly realize the direction from which a sound or noise is coming from. She enjoys listening to the source of sound. No doubt, she listens intently to the sound created by a rattle or a jingle set or wind chimes rubbing together. She shows clear indication of knowing her own name, as she invariably responds to the call of her name in her surroundings.

She is also evolving a range of emotions, including anger, boredom, happiness etc. She may already start to show off her attachment towards you, as she stretches out her arms each time she wishes to be carried in your lap. She may also cry bitterly when you put her to bed and move out of the room. She has started to get jokes and also learnt to laugh at them. So when you make funny expression or silly faces, or nonsense sounds before her, she invariably laughs.

In gist, from five months of age, your little one becomes a very enjoyable company, who laughs, cries and makes merry with you.